Favorite Sons (30 page)

The smaller man had his hands in his pockets, rocking from heel to toe. Although he was small in stature, he carried himself as a man of imperious authority. His eyes were dark, dispassionate, intimidating. Some of his strength was no doubt garnered from the large, well-armed deputy standing behind him, but he was a man used to getting his own way. In a smug voice he asked, “So, what do we have here?”

I, too, was used to getting my way. I feigned reading a document to show I wasn't intimidated.

“Are you talking to me?”

“I don't see anyone else here, do you?”

“In that case, I don't understand the question,” I said, hovering over the document for another moment before standing, knowing that I was at least seven inches taller than the little man.

“I find it a little disconcerting that you're in here rummaging through records that are the purview of my office.”

“‘Purview,'” I repeated. “That's an impressive word. While it's true these records are the purview of your office, let's remember that they are still
public
records. That means they're open to the public, of which I am a member. So, I'm not sure why you would find that disconcerting.”

He grinned. “Looks like we've got us a smart guy here, deputy. What's your purpose here? You were asking about old campaign records, now you're in here snooping around old prosecution files.”

“How would you know what I was looking for?”

“It's a small town. My aunt Audra over at Linn's called and said there was a well-dressed man in there making copies of old campaign contributions. The good ladies at the board of elections guided me down here. Not much happens around here without me knowing about it, Mr. . . .” I stood in silence, which reddened his neck just above the collar. He took the toe of a finely buffed black wingtip and flipped over the accordion file. When he saw which case I had been examining, a little color slipped from his face. He swallowed. It was hardly noticeable, but I saw it. It was a nervous response to the name on the folder, not unlike a second-grader being caught with chewing gum. “Why are you looking through the Vukovich file?” he sneered.

“Vukovich?” I frowned and looked down at the documents. “I thought it was the Sanchez file.”

“Answer my question.”

“I'm just an interested citizen.”

For a long moment, Botticelli stared at me, the sneer replaced by puzzlement, his brain whirling as he tried to put a name with the face. “I know you from somewhere.”

“You want some help?” He gave the slightest of nods. “You've probably seen me at the Ohio Prosecuting Attorney Association meetings.”

His brows arched. “Hutchinson Van Buren. Well, deputy, it looks like we are in the presence of a real celebrity.”

“He doesn't look so important to me,” the deputy grumbled, his first words.

“Oh, but he is. This is Hutchinson Van Buren, the Summit County prosecuting attorney. But more importantly, he's going to be our next attorney general, if you believe the polls. But the perplexing question remains: What are you doing here?”He took the children services folder from my hand and examined the interview document. “My, my, but isn't this interesting. I had never actually read this file. I didn't realize the good preacher had a connection to Mr. Vukovich. Is that why you're here?”

“I think the question is, why did your face go suddenly white when you saw that I was looking at this file? Does it have anything to do with the campaign contribution records I saw?”

He forced a slight smile. “I can assure you, Mr. Van Buren, that anything you found in those records strictly adheres to state law, but the question remains, why do you care? If this is official prosecutor's business, wouldn't you at least give your counterpart the courtesy of a phone call?”

“Not if I think the prosecutor in question is dirty.”

Botticelli's jaws tightened. He was not used to being challenged.

“Maybe you ought to be moving on down the road,” he said.

I dug into my pocket and produced the brass key and dropped it in his hand. “Lock up when you leave, and don't forget to turn out the lights.”

T
he campus for the Cathedral of Peace sat on the sandstone bluff of Buttermaker Hill, just south of Steubenville, overlooking the rusting hulk that was the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation and the Ohio River beyond. It covered the same grounds that was once the campus of St. Brendan's College for Women, a Catholic school founded shortly after the Civil War to train schoolteachers and nurses. As more colleges became coeducational, St. Brendan's withered and died in the waning days of the Great Depression, just before the start of World War II. The buildings were claimed by the Sisters of Bonaventure, a Franciscan order that created a hospital and nursing home for the poor, which disappeared when the last members of the order died off in the early seventies. After it sat in disrepair and became a party place for teenagers, and a general nuisance for the sheriff's department, the Reverend Dale Ray Coultas bought the property for one dollar in 1988 with the promise of resurrecting it for his church and Christian school. Everyone except the partying teenagers was thrilled.

Dale Ray had started his ministry shortly after graduating from college. He had been a devout United Methodist, but didn't want the constraints of an established church. Rather, he rented out the boarded-up shoe store in downtown Steubenville where we had purchased our PF Flyers as kids and opened up River of Peace Ministries. He established a strong children's program and ministered to the infirm in their homes and in nursing homes.
Word spread of his church and his mission of charity. Within a year he had to move his Sunday services to the auditorium at the high school to handle the growing congregation. A year after that, he bought the old United Brethren Church and renamed it the Cathedral of Peace, which housed his ministries until the new church on Buttermaker Hill was completed in the spring of 1990. He was well known for his charitable foundation and was currently serving as chairman of the Governor's Council on Inter-Faith Initiatives.

The new church sat at the apex of the hill and was constructed from stone that had been recycled from the college buildings. It's facade was square and traditional, with two sets of curved stairways approaching the double doors from either side and a towering spire and cross made of stainless steel that was lit up at night and could be seen for miles up and down the river. Two wings with glass fronts curved off from the main building, giving the impression that the church's two arms were embracing the campus. I parked in the arched driveway near the front door and I found my way inside. The sanctuary had a high cathedral ceiling and cushioned chairs instead of pews, which I thought odd in light of its traditional look. It was, however, a spectacular piece of architecture and I marveled at Deak's ability to raise enough money to build such a structure in a depressed area.

From the sanctuary I could see the hallway leading to the church offices. I walked to the rear of the church and found a polished oak door with a plastic placard that read, “Pastor Coultas.” I knocked and pushed open the door. The lights were off, but the room was illuminated by the two skylights in the cathedral ceiling. One wall was adorned with a mural of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Another wall held six shadow boxes containing neatly arranged arrowheads, and behind his desk was a large portrait of the Coultas family—Deak, Carolyn, the college sweetheart who later became his wife, a daughter, and two sons who looked like clones of the boy I knew in my youth. They were posed in front of a fake fireplace wearing beige slacks and red sweaters. The ideal family, I thought. The portrait appeared to be several years old. The oldest boy, Caleb, looked to be in his mid-teens in the photo, and I was
pretty sure Deak's kids were out of college by now. Time continued to run away from me. I stared at the portrait for a long minute, a little jealous of his family.

I heard voices in the basement and followed them down the stairs to where four women stood amid a small mountain of clothing, separating it into smaller piles for adults and children, male and female. A lean woman with a spray of wild, orange hair saw my look of puzzlement and offered, “They're for our secondhand store downtown.”

“Looks like quite a job,” I said.

“It's a small pile. You should see the mountain of clothes that comes in before Christmas.”

I nodded. “I'm looking for Reverend Coultas. Is he around?”

A squat woman with a seemingly permanent frown who was standing in the middle of the pile looked up and said, “He ain't here. He's at a conference, or something, out in Columbus and won't be back until late this afternoon or evening. He might not stop by.”

She seemed to be in charge, so I walked over and handed her my business card and said, “If he does, would you please give him my card and ask him to give me a call?”

She took my card and swallowed, which was not an uncommon reaction to someone seeing that I was a prosecuting attorney. “What do you want to talk to him about?”

None of your damn business, I wanted to tell her, but refrained. “If you could, just ask him to call my cell phone. I'll be up late.”

As I left she was passing the card around for all to see. I drove to the bottom of Coal Hill Road and was ready to turn onto Lincoln Avenue when my cell phone rang. I didn't recognize the number and answered in a formal tone, “Hutchinson Van Buren.”

The female voice said, “You know, this morning was another wonderful reminder of why I don't like working for you. You send me out to get you a cup of coffee, and the next thing I know I'm fighting drug lords in Colombia.”

Judy Norris never identified herself at the onset of telephone conversations, assuming the person on the other end of the line
intuitively knew it was her. It had taken me years to get used to the practice. “What's up?”

“Oh, not much, other than I was trying to track down some information at the bank on this Vukovich character, and I was greeted by two humorless men in black suits, with badges and I assume large guns, and all of a sudden I was the one getting interrogated.”

“Holy shit. Who were they?”

“Two sweethearts from the Main Street Task Force.”

My jaw tightened. The Main Street Task Force was a special unit of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, a division of the Ohio Attorney General. It was originally formed with noble intentions. It would assist county sheriffs and prosecutors with complex, white-collar crimes, particularly in rural and poor counties where expertise in such matters was at a premium. However, most sheriffs were reluctant to utilize the task force for fear that it would wrestle control of the investigation and make them look weak to their voters, and prosecutors never want the state niggling in county matters. Finding the task force underutilized, the attorney general had redirected the unit to begin conducting its own investigations, using state banking and finance laws to investigate criminal activity in local governments, banks, and nonprofits. I thought the task force routinely overstepped the authority of the office of the attorney general, and I had said so during my campaign and planned to abolish it when I got elected. On a personal note, I was no different than any other county prosecutor and I didn't like state investigators snooping in my county without first contacting my office.

“What the hell were they doing there?” I asked

“I don't know, Hutch, I didn't get much out of them. Frankly, they were the ones asking most of the questions. I went to the recorder's office and found that Vukovich bought the car from Ross Maddox Imports in Tallmadge. It's a used two thousand, and he paid thirteen thousand, five hundred dollars for it—cash.”

“A check?”

“No. Cash. Green money. I spoke to the salesman who distinctly remembered selling him the car. He said Vukovich walked into the used car lot, pointed to the Saab, and asked, ‘What's your best price
out the door?' They dickered a bit, but when they arrived at a price Vukovich could live with, he reached into a briefcase and peeled off a hundred and thirty-five hundred-dollar bills and dropped them on the salesman's desk.”

“Christ, where's he getting that kind of money?”

“Don't know, chief. I checked the county auditor's records on the house. It's owned by Farmwald Realty Investors. I called them, and they directed me to a company on Copley Road, the Blatz Property Management Company. I went over to their offices and the woman there knew Vukovich. She called him ‘the guy with the bad eye.' She said he comes in every month and pays on time, sometimes with cash, but sometimes with a bank cashier's check, always made out to him, and he signs it over. She didn't remember what bank the cashier's check was drawn on, but the management company does its banking at Summit Credit and Trust. So, I went over to the local bank branch, talked to the manager, figuring I was going to get nowhere, and he says, “Come on back. This Vukovich is a popular guy, huh?”

“I said, ‘What do you mean?' and he gave me this odd look. He must have thought I was a member of the Main Street Task Force because he led me into a back room where the two men in black suits were sitting at a conference table looking over records. The bank manager announces, ‘Here's one of your folks,' and they immediately stood up and flashed their badges. I about peed my pants.”

“What were they doing?”

“I don't know. I walked into a damn hornet's nest on your behalf, thank you very much. They were real interested to know why I was there.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them I was working on your behalf and I wasn't told anything beyond the scope of my particular assignment, which was the truth. They're investigating someone connected to the checks, but I don't think Vukovich is the target of their investigation.”